Wise men speak up at last

Nelson Mandela once said, “Fools multiply when wise men are silent”. The outcome of the political adventure of President Jacob Zuma at Nasrec has just proven the correctness of that statement.

The sensational humiliation of the Zuma/ Gupta project of conquering South Africa was a watershed moment in our infant state. The ANC national policy conference (NPC) was billed by his hitherto dominant faction as a final onslaught and a run-over of all the pillars of our democracy. Listening to the closing remarks delivered by a flat, dejected, and totally bruised and humiliated Zuma, one got the assurance that our people have heeded Sipho Pityana’s call for the nation to save South Africa.

The Zuma faction went to the conference with the aim of bullying and burying those who stood in their way. They were sure their populist racist white monopoly capital, state capture project and the installation of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as president of the country would be endorsed.

All those propositions were rejected. The reality on the ground and the mood of the nation forced Zuma to design new survival tactics. The Zuma who closed the conference was a totally different person to the upbeat one who opened it.

During his opening speech, he insulted and rubbished the veterans and the stalwarts of the ANC, to the glee of his factional backers. He said corruption was a perception and made no reference to state capture. He half-heartedly read something about a “technical recession” – he, in fact, does not believe it exists.

He was so used to the silence of “wise men”, totally oblivious to the growing chorus of South Africans who want the country to be saved from him. He has to create instant and unilateral ANC policies to preserve his rotten legacy.

It will be remiss of us not to credit the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets calling for Zuma to step down. In their views, he has turned and continues to turn, our country into a laughing stock on the global stage.

The marches were a desperate attempt by concerned and patriotic citizens to wrest our country from the clutches of foreign commercial parasites.

The marches were a desperate attempt by concerned and patriotic citizens to wrest our country from the clutches of foreign commercial parasites.

The wise men and women in the ANC have joined us in our campaign of reclaiming our country, recapturing our government and all our public institutions, and reasserting our moral fibre and human values as a nation.

Like the Save South Africa (SSA) campaign, the majority of the conference delegates are advocating that our country be led by someone who is proper and fit to hold the office of president of the country.

A person who will be obliged to protect, defend and uphold our constitution. Our country has been mismanaged and misdirected into the shameful path of political manipulation, dishonesty and unbridled criminality, orchestrated from the highest office of the land.

We need a leader who will inculcate the values of democracy, national sovereignty and territorial integrity in the nation; to remind all and sundry that our struggle was just, executed with courage, discipline and ethical leadership. We all had a vision of a truly united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous society.

I am sure that many citizens align themselves with SSA’s assertion, when it says, “Today, those hopes and dreams are dashed by a rapacious predatory elite. “The dignity that has briefly been bestowed on those most marginalised by apartheid is being ripped away as state resources are misappropriated with impunity by this criminal enterprise.”

It is good that the ANC rank and file has been woken up to the vision and objective of those who fought for freedom. They remembered that, during the liberation struggle, our forebears sought to emancipate us from all shackles of political oppression, economic exploitation and social degradation.

The objectives of those before us were to liberate our country so that our people should be able to enjoy all the benefits of a free state. It was envisaged that all the socio-economic difficulties confronting our people would be eliminated.

All of that, it was believed, would be enshrined and anchored in the constitution. The president of the country would be the custodian of that.

We cannot be a country that has a president who is associated with political criminality, nepotism, corruption, state-orchestrated money-laundering and other highly questionable decisions, such as quitting the International Criminal Court, firing a highly reputable minister of finance, and what others call the outsourcing of the country to family members and friends of the political elite.

The task of mopping up the mess and restoring our respectability as a nation at home and abroad is a responsibility of every citizen. Civil society should redirect South Africa to be the bastion of human rights that we promised to be in the early days of our democracy. The naked truth about our country is that things are falling apart.

The glorious movement of liberation has been turned into a fiefdom of desperate and uncouth political criminal gangs. Fighting for and promoting good governance, respect for the rule of law and the defence of our constitutional democracy is the best insurance available to us.